


A Knight's Mother

by BombshellBlondie



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Family, Gen, Minor Character Death, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 17:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BombshellBlondie/pseuds/BombshellBlondie
Summary: "She never liked it when he had to leave. She liked it even less when he took Link with him. His father's page, Link was expected to accompany him as often as he could to learn the ways of the Knights of Hyrule. The older he got, the more trips he was allowed to go on. Every time she watched them leave, she was fraught with the thought that it might be the last time she ever saw them. But, she’d known the life she'd chosen when she decided to marry a knight. It was his duty to protect the kingdom, and it was hers to support him. And when her first child was a son… she knew what that meant too."Before the Calamity, POV Link's mother. Poor lady.





	A Knight's Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I saw that scan from the master works w/ Link's father and sister, I've been thinking about his poor family almost constantly. Hope y'all like maternal angst!

She never liked it when he had to leave. She liked it even less when he took Link with him. His father's page, Link was expected to accompany him as often as he could to learn the ways of the Knights of Hyrule. The older he got, the more trips he was allowed to go on. Every time she watched them leave, she was fraught with the thought that it might be the last time she ever saw them. But, she’d known the life she'd chosen when she decided to marry a knight. It was his duty to protect the kingdom, and it was hers to support him. And when her first child was a son… she knew what that meant too.

“The boy’s a prodigy, ma’am,” she’d been told, by almost every member of her husband's rank. “More skill in his little finger than most men have in their whole bodies. He’ll make a fine knight when he’s older.” Her husband always glowed with pride at those words. It was all she could do to accept the praise with a forced smile. No matter what anyone said about Link, she could never see him as anything other than what he was: a little boy. _Her_ little boy. He was silly, small for his age, and always seemed to be scraping his knees or bumping his head. It was impossible to imagine him as a grown man, strong and brave, dressed in chain mail and carrying a sword. Yet she’d known even since he was still feeding from her breast she’d have to let go some day. A son of the Royal Guard would become a knight. A knight would fight to defend his kingdom. His mother’s feelings on the matter were all but irrelevant.

But she could still try. “Must you go this time?” she’d asked, as she always did.

Her husband put on his most reassuring smile for her, as he always did. “It’s just a short trip, darling—3 days, to the Spring and back. We’ll be home before you know it.”

Yes, just a short trip. Link’s first trip to the Spring of Courage, to pray to Farore as was tradition for the Knights of Hyrule, that was all. They were traveling alone, not with the King or any high-profile people that would be targets for criminals. They were not going into battle. It would be a safe trip, and a short one. Perhaps she was only feeling anxious because it was the first time they’d left since their second child was born the year prior. Rationally, there was very little for her to fear, but a mother's instinct is rarely a rational thing. 

“Alright Link, say goodbye to your mum.”

Link wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her with a strength she didn’t know he had. “Bye Mum!” he beamed.

“Goodbye darling,” she said, running her fingers through his golden hair. “You’ll be due for a haircut when you get back.”

He voiced his displeasure with a long groan—he’d never liked anything he had to sit still for—but a stern look from his father set him straight right away. “Yes, Mum.”

Her husband approached her then, for a chaste kiss, “I love you,” he said. 

“And I love you,” she replied.

With one last smile and a peck to the forehead of the babe in her arms, he was out the door. Link rushed along behind him.

“Three days!” she shouted after them.

“Three days!” they both shouted back.

***

It was five days later that Link back stumbled through the front door. Alone.

He was dirty, his shoulders sagged, his eyes hollow. The helmet on his head was far too big for him, the sword in his little hand nearly longer than he was tall. Blood stained his face and clothes. Her heart was a stone in her stomach.

She fell to her knees in front of him at the door, pulling him into an embrace and leaving kisses on his dirty cheeks, running her fingers through his too-long hair. He was stock still in her arms, but he was alive. Thank Hylia he was alive. Two days late for their return, she was sure she’d lost them both. She held his face in her hands, wiping the dirt from his face as she asked, “Link… where’s your father? What happened to you?”

Link didn’t say anything. He only stared straight ahead, as if looking at something far beyond her, trembling ever-so slightly.

The infantry returned three days later with her husband’s body. Ambushed by the Yiga Clan, they told her, their calling cards left at the scene. It’s likely they had been waiting along the path to the Spring, knowing that the Knights of Hyrule often traveled there to pray. The rumors had it, they were trying to take out the hero of legend, said to be among them, in hopes to ensure Calamity Ganon's successful revival. She didn’t understand any of it. Calamity Ganon... those were just stories, tales that parents told their children before putting them to bed. Even if it were true, and even if the hero had returned, her husband, skilled as he was, was not a hero of such caliber. 

At the funeral, they all offered her their condolences, told her he was a fine man, one of the bravest soldiers they’d ever fought alongside. She already knew all this. She thanked them anyway. Link stood still at her side through the whole ceremony, silent as the day he’d returned. He didn't cry, never shed a single tear. Yet when he accepted his father’s sword, she noticed his little hands were shaking.

Despite the trauma, or perhaps because of it, Link refused to change his daily schedule. He would get up at dawn, practice his swordsmanship near the coop in the yard, and bring a basket of eggs in for breakfast, all without a single word. Then he would go off into town on the same patrol route he usually took with his father—this she only knew because the neighbors would mention seeing him wandering around. When he returned home, he would eat his dinner, help with the dishes, and go straight to bed.

Weeks passed, and not a single word slipped through his lips. She began to worry he would never speak again. When he was younger, she’d thought the worst thing in the world was to see him cry. Now, she realized, that to see him _not_ cry, to not show any emotion at all, was far worse. Where once he was talkative and energetic, always excited to share the details of his day with her over supper, he was now cold. It was as though the very life had been sucked out of him, leaving only a hollow shell in the shape of her son. This, more than anything else, was what she found herself crying over late at night.

One stormy evening, she answered a knock on the door to find a knight standing on the other side, just out of the rain. His face was rough, like so many knights, but his eyes were kind. She realized, belatedly, that she recognized him; a member of her husband's rank. He had been at the funeral. Where the other knights had given their condolences to Link as if he were a grown man, this knight had stood out to her because he knelt and spoke to Link softly, as one should speak to a child who had just lost his father. 

He spoke to her now with the same soft voice, as if trying to calm a spooked animal. “Good evening my lady,” he said as he handed her a letter, “this message is for your son, young master Link. I’d like to offer him a position as my squire.”

It figured that, just as soon as she let down her guard, thinking she could trust this man to be looking out for her son, he would say such a thing. “A squire?” she repeated, incredulous. “He’s _ten_.”

“And exceptionally talented, ma’am. His Majesty the King himself has offered to make an exception to the usual age restrictions. If he starts now, it’s likely he’ll be knighted as soon as he’s able to fill out a suit of armor.”

The image of Link, her son, in a full suit of armor, on the front lines of battle, flashed through her mind. It was this image which brought her anguish to a head, set fire to an anger more terrible than she’d ever experienced before. Frustration burned in her throat and blurred her vision. She crushed the letter in her hand, stared the knight directly in the eye as she said, with an edge sharper than the blade on his back, “No.”

He stuttered, taken aback. “My lady, if you would—”

“I said no!” she shouted. “I don’t care what you, what _His Majesty_ say, you take my husband from me, and now you have the _nerve_ to come take my son as well? I don’t care how talented you say he is—he’s a child! He’s not old enough to have that kind of responsibility! He doesn’t know what it means! You can’t have him! Not yet, not—”

“Mum.”

It was the first time she’d heard his voice since the morning they’d left for the Spring. The sound of it stunned her into silence. Link reached out, gently taking the letter from where she had crushed it in her hand, “I want to.”

“Link…” she said, her voice soft, wavering. “Darling, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes I do,” he insisted. “I want to.”

The knight cut in, “He’ll be compensated for his work, of course. At least twenty rupees a day—”

She turned back to the knight, once again in a rage, “This isn’t about the bloody money!” It was true, the cuccos could not lay eggs fast enough to feed the three of them without her husband’s income. The budget was tight, she wasn't eating most nights so she could make sure her children had enough, but that didn’t mean she needed to sell her son to the same occupation that had taken his father. She was going to figure something out, a way to support them on her own. She just needed a little more time.

“Mum…” Link said, softer this time. “Please. I want to help.”

“You do help, darling. You do such a good job watching over Aryll for me—”

“Not just at home, I want to help more. I want to be a knight,” he said. “I want to protect everyone.”

She opened her mouth to protest again, but the look in his eyes stopped her voice in her throat. She’d recognize it anywhere, the burning determination that she’d seen light up her husband’s eyes so many times before. It was how she’d known his honest intentions when he began to court her, when he asked her to marry him, and every time he left for battle. And now, seeing the same look in her son’s eyes… it was how she knew she’d lost him.

 

Two weeks later, Link walked through the front door and promptly dropped a pouch on the kitchen table. Inside, there were two hundred rupees.

***

Four years passed like that. Link became taller and stronger, outgrew his clothes nearly as soon as she could fashion him new ones. He was twelve years old when he first shooed her away from a barrel of apples she was struggling with, lifting it himself with ease. She caught him doing pull-ups on the rafters nearly every other day, no matter how many times she’d told him off for doing so.

As Link grew bigger, his mother felt herself grow smaller and weaker. It was little things at first, like being unable to lift the bags of feed or running out of energy to cook dinner. Link began to do those things for her. At first, she insisted it was unnecessary, that she could still do them herself. But when Link was gone for more than a few days, it showed. The house went uncleaned, dinner was often as simple as bread and butter. It was harder for her to take care of things, but she tired desperately to keep it from being too obvious. Link was already doing more for the family than he should have to, and on top of his training… she couldn’t let her son worry about her. She was his mother, it was her job to protect him.

When Link approached her one evening and announced he was planning to take the knight’s exam, her heart sank. She knew what the exam involved. Her husband had told her about it when he first began courting her, bragged about how he slayed a ferocious monster bigger than 10 of Hyrule’s strongest men put together. Back then, the thought of it, a handsome young knight, vanquishing a dreadful foe to prove his strength, had excited her. Now, it only filled her with dread.

Link came home from his exam unscathed. It did little to put her at ease.

At 14, he was the youngest knight in recorded history. Her neighbors, friends, even people on the street she had never met before, recognized her as the prodigious knight’s mother and offered her their congratulations. She must be so proud of him, they said. Surely his father, may Hylia rest his soul, would be as well. She bit her tongue and did not tell them they’d be proud of him whether he became a knight or not.

It was not long after, she found herself bedridden. The stress of the last four years had finally reached a breaking point. No longer able to hide her condition from him, Link took it upon himself to take care of her. Even with the responsibilities of a full-fledged knight on his shoulders, Link spent every moment he could spare by her bedside. He stayed close to home, made her and Aryll dinner every night. He prayed to the goddess for her to get better. He told her how he was taking care of Ayrll, teaching her letters and numbers. It was the most he had spoken in years. He knew that hearing his voice made her happy, and he tried desperately to keep her spirits up. She had noticed the way he had grown, the way his jawline had become more defined despite the baby fat still sticking to his cheeks. But it was hearing his voice, so much deeper than it had been the last time she heard it, that struck her with the realization: somehow, when she wasn't looking, her son had grown up. 

In her final days, seeing him sitting beside her, his hair too long and his eyes too old, was at once her only comfort and her only regret.


End file.
